Selectin of encephalitogenic rat T-Lymphocyte clones recognizing an immunodominant epitope on myelin basic protein

✍ Scribed by Dr. Y. K. Chou; A. A. Vandenbark; R. E. Jones; G. Hashim; H. Offner

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 585 KB
• Volume: 22
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0360-4012
• DOI: 10.1002/jnr.490220211

✦ Synopsis

Using the soft agar-cloning technique, we isolated 13 T-cell clones from guinea pig basic protein (GP-BP)specific T-cell lines derived from Lewis rats. The clonal frequency was approximately 2.5 X Each of these clones had a similar but not identical pattern of response to a battery of synthetic peptides representing overlapping epitopes in the encephalitogenic region for Lewis rats (69-89 sequence). All clones responded to the minimal encephalitogenic sequence (residues 72-84) restricted by I-A but not I-E molecules, and all transferred clinical experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) and delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) reaction to naive rats. Phenotypically, the clones were W3/13+ (total T), W3/25+ (T helper), and OX-22+ (DTH associated). This report demonstrates for the first time the applicability of the soft agar-cloning technique for obtaining encephalitogenic T-cell clones. The exclusive recovery of 72-84-specific T-cell clones after only two rounds of stimulation with GP-BP indicates the immunodominance of this epitope and the power of the line selection technique for obtaining encephalitogenic T-cell specificities.